Danny Bowien on his James Beard win, Air Jordans and his next San Francisco project

Last night, Mission Chinese Food’s Danny Bowienwon the James Beard Award for Rising Star Chef, continuing the stratospheric ascent of the chef who started experimenting with Chinese food in a Mission dive with Anthony Myint not too long ago. In fact, all Top Chef’s Padma Lakshmi — who was presenting the award — had to say when reading the winner’s name was “Danny!” No last name needed.

Bowien is not slowing down either. With his New York and San Francisco Mission Chinese outposts still going full throttle, he’s finishing a book with Chris Ying and looking ahead to new projects.

After he got his medal, Bowien and I chatted about a number of things, including his shoes, what San Francisco means to him, and scoop alert, his next San Francisco restaurant (he’s currently shopping for spaces).

Some of the choice excerpts:

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On the win: “It’s a huge honor. Especially with the other chefs nominated. It’s just insane … It’s an amazing thing for me because what we’re doing is so different, and I got into this not knowing what I was doing in the beginning. I had cooked other cuisines, but not Chinese. To be able to get recognition for something I’ve only been doing for a few years is insane.”

On his shoes: “The shoes are Jordan 11s. The concept of these was [Michael Jordan] wanted basketball shoes that he could wear when he went to press conferences … Also they’re called the Space Jams. I’ve wanted them since 15 years ago and I got them yesterday.”

Advice for young chefs: “Go do it. You have to love it, and if you love it, do it. There’s a lot of opportunity for chefs everywhere now. Take your time, too. Go learn first, don’t just jump in.”

On San Francisco believing in him and his crew: “That’s one of the reasons we’re going back to San Francisco … We’re obviously going to do something else here, but San Francisco — there’s a lot of opportunity out there. The fact that we did what we did and there’s so still much more opportunity for young cooks … We’re at the point where we’ll be able to promote everyone within Mission Chinese.”

On Mission Chinese chef Jesse Koide: “Jesse Koide is the person who taught me how to sharpen a knife. I don’t think that everyone knows that. Jesse was my chef before. We worked together for four years in sushi restaurants, we worked at Slow Club together. We were both at Bar Tartine, Farina, Alembic … We’ve cooked in every restaurant together basically at one time or another. So we owe it to him. I was like, dude, let’s open a place.”

On their new project: “It’s going to be insane. It’s going to challenge people. I want to make food that we definitely want to eat on our day off — food that cooks want to eat, that diners want to eat … It’ll be Asian. It’s not going to be Chinese — I don’t think. I don’t think I can convince Jesse to cook any more Chinese food [laughs] … It’s going to be a twin concept restaurant. We’re actually going away for a lot of R&D.”